N.W.T. dogsledder turns mushing into tourism gold

Trish Audette, The Edmonton Journal09.14.2008

Grant Beck's sled dogs are in action year-round, pulling sleds in the winter and a utility vehicle in the summer. The Yellowknife musher is one of a growing number who have turned their sport into a business venture.

YELLOWKNIFE - Grant Beck's dogsledding heritage reaches back more than a century to the days his German ancestors spent hunting and trapping along Great Slave Lake.

He learned to mush when he was nine. He has since collected medals for races all over the northern hemisphere.

In recent years, the 59-year-old and his wife, Carol, have turned the dogsledding life into a Yellowknife tourist attraction.

In winter, visitors can take the reins after a short mushing lesson and lead a crew of 14 Alaskan huskies over packed snow. In summer, the dogs are hooked up to a Kawasaki Mule 3010 utility vehicle and run along a short trail.

"The Japanese tourists come up to see the Northern Lights and to dog-mush," Beck says.

More mushers are coming around to the same idea, says Richard Zieba, director of tourism and parks for the Northwest Territories.

"The dogsledding is a major attraction or activity for a lot of people," Zieba says, adding there is a growing demand for "experiential tourism" -- activities visitors can get involved in, rather than stand and watch.

Because the cost of flying into Yellowknife -- let alone more remote areas of the territories -- is so prohibitive, the government focuses on the "high-yield market," Zieba says. Essentially, these are "well-educated people who want to experience something off the beaten track."

To appeal particularly to Japanese and German tourists -- and, in the future, Korean, Mexican and Australian tourists -- phrases like "the adventure of a lifetime" are used to describe a vacation in the territories.

"Come see it before it disappears," adds Zieba. "Certainly, climate change has put the North on the map in terms of media and created more awareness."

Next door, in Nunavut, more cruise ships are making their way along the Northwest Passage because of a bigger ice-free window in the summer. Soon, shoreline communities in the N.W.T. could see the same increase in visitors.

But new tourist interest in remote Arctic communities would require more money from the government.

The territorial government has poured money into training funds to provide tourism workshops to community leaders and put programming in the schools.

"The tourism industry is facing the same kind of labour shortages that Alberta and Saskatchewan are," Zieba says, adding it is difficult for the industry to compete for workers.

Tourism is the third-strongest economic driver, after the oil and gas industry and mining.

One benefit of tourism is the roughly $100 million generated in a year stays in the N.W.T., Zieba says. The bulk of revenue from natural-resource extraction often goes elsewhere.

As many as 70,000 travellers went to the Northwest Territories in 2007. Most were people who drove from other parts of Canada. There are significant numbers of adventure-seekers, too, looking for guided hunting and fishing trips or time alone in a canoe to navigate the wilderness.